


feels like there's oceans within you and me

by violentsdelight



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Ian POV, M/M, Post Season 7, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-11-03 06:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10961286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentsdelight/pseuds/violentsdelight
Summary: Follow up of adventures in Mexico, a sequel of "las doces uvas de la suerte," which isn't essential to the reading of this but doesn't hurt for some context.





	1. Bienvenido

**Author's Note:**

> title inspiration from the song "oceans" by seafret, i just tweaked it slightly. 
> 
> 6 months later and I'm finally getting around to posting the first part of 3! 
> 
> i'd like to disclaim that the place described in here doesn't actually conform to any real place+ the Spanish used in it does mostly come from me (eek) so do correct me if i made any mistakes.
> 
> and with that, i leave you to scroll.....

**PART I** ,

“Didn't give me a tour.” 

Mickey drops his gaze from where his head is resting against the wall, smoke flaring from his nostrils. He's looked in those eyes a million times. Ian's looking up at him, jaw in his palm, head in his hand, hair all over the place. “Eh,” he smirks, “had better things to do.”

The scuffled sheets pushed to their descent to the floor, admist the remnants of a war zone, the horny duo troop against the federal army of clothes. The victorious lay upon the white bedspread, nothing but bare bodies and skin, only a touch away.

“'Sides, can do it from here. Bedroom,” he states, referring to its only component and smiling when Ian mumbles something about its high importance and position in hierarchy of priorities, as he flips onto his back and props on his elbows to follow Mickey's intricate directions. Mickey flings his arm to indicate the rest. “Crapper,” and Ian notices the entryway through a narrow door, “Kitchen,” is what the sink and cooker are, and the TV room, which is quite literally a TV in the corner with a couch in front. “And that's what they call a casa here.”

“I like it,” Ian says, because he does. It's remote and compact, and it radiates something bigger than minimal construction and convenience. The window on the roof above them has a suspending gape connecting them to the outside, the January air raining down in a breeze and dancing around their exposed skin. It smells like salt and sand and elements of the earth he'd never even imagined. It's new and he's feeling it all for the first time, in a way he'll never experience again. The unfamiliar is in front of his eyes and in his lungs, and Mickey's smiling right at him when he looks over his shoulder. Ian smiles back. “I really do.”

“Good,” Mickey nearly whispers, and the promise is reflecting in their eyes and glowing on their cheeks. “Hope you like where you're sleeping,” he says matter of factly, looking over at the couch.

“Fuck off,” Ian shoves him, and Mickey grins, open mouthed, eyes creasing. Ian's grinning too but not letting the crease of his eyes take away his vision. Remembers the nights at the Milkovich house when they would sneak past the chaos and slip into their timeshare, a bed they called their own. Ian, triumphant, limitless, untouchable, grinning until his cheeks hurt, until Mickey couldn't hold back one either. How he'd never felt the closest to soaring around the sun than when he got to see it, watching him as he swiped his thumb over his lip, out of sheer timidness and fluster. Those moments where the earth would stop feeling like it was spiralling and that Ian had to catch up with it.

“So I talked to Svet,” Ian says, glancing at Mickey.

He chews his lip. “How's her threesome Brady Brunch going?”

“She stole Kev's bar so not great I guess,” and when Mickey just scrunches his nose, “don't ask. Anyway, she, uh,” Ian turns to look at him properly, his voice steady, “she said yes.”

A shaky breath leaves Mickey's chest. “He can come?”

“Yeah Mick, he can come,” Ian says, beginning to smile, at the sight of the subtle joy he can see rising in Mickey's chest and face.

“Little squirt's gonna know what a real summer looks like,” he declares, not even resisting the grin on his face.

Ian had heard of his existence and never needed any further justification, other than a part of Mickey was in the world and he was going to shield and protect it. He'd always thought of Yevgeny as a little bit of himself too, held him tight when he remembered it all. It didn't surprise him that the instinct came naturally, even with the shiver of a flashback and the phantom throbbing of his pulse at night. Mickey's journey was patent, slower. Shedding shallow breaths and watery eyes every time he held the baby, grasping onto the glimmer from the rubble he'd refused to look at. What crumbled left sharp fragments and dust that still linger sometimes, flinches from brusk movements, dreams too real to be peaceful. Mickey hadn't wanted Yevgeny to begin with.

Now, he's choosing him.

“She said we have to pay for everything, that she doesn't want a dime coming out her account just cause we, and I quote, “decided to go to bumfuck of other country just to bumfuck.”

Mickey scoffs. “Fucking bitch I swear, like she didn't milk me dry when her tits couldn't milk enough.”

Ian just shakes his head, giddy. “Whatever. It's fucking worth it, isn't it?”

Mickey smiles. “Yeah it's fucking worth it.” He licks his lips, edges in closer, noses feathering and foreheads bumping. Their breaths are blending into one. Ian abruptly interrupts and cuts the contact when he pulls back and jumps off the bed.

“The fuck?” Mickey grumbles. Ian lifts his index in response, putting him on hold, while he locates his bag. He finds it thrown over near the TV, and huffs at their roughness when they have something to do. He unzips it, pulls out what he needs, and faces a curious Mickey, sitting up on the bed.

“Brought something for you,” Ian smiles, walking back over to him.

“Makin' up for Christmas?” Mickey asks. “Would explain a whole lot if you turned out to work for Santa. Snow leprechaun, tell Santa his lazy ass is doing a shit job. And tell him I haven't been good and that you can punish me for it,” he clicks his tongue, in that cocky, confident way he does sometimes.

“Like I would work for Santa, that bastard never did squat for me,” Ian reasons, climbing up next to Mickey. He gives him a once over, “But I can punish you for calling me a leprechaun.”

“They're from ginger land aren't they? Ride over big ass gay rainbows don't they?”

“Kinda making me rethink giving this to you, Mick,” Ian chuckles, but hands over object all the same.

The nature of the object is discernible instantly, Mickey's hands grasping the thin material and holding it out, thumbs grazing over it wonderously. “My fucking shirt,” he says, like he can't believe it, because he'd never expected to see it again, left it behind in the clouds of dust behind his car through the desert into the country.

“You did look kinda sexy in it,” Ian softly laughs.

“ _Think this'll fit? Kinda sexy_.”

 _Yes_ , Ian would've said, if a bursting explosive hadn't just lit up in his mind, if he'd managed to derail his focus on anything else other than the bigger picture, the opportunity, the open door they'd been offered. Luck, a stranger to them round these parts but knocking on their door that day, and like hell Ian was letting it slip away. His fingers were tingling with the need to grab it, squeeze it, make it theirs. He could take this lemon and make lemonade for them. That suitcase was their lemon.

“ _Lisinopril. Should I google it, see what it does?_ ”

“Just kinda, Gallagher?” Mickey smirks, his cheeks glowing and pale blue eyes holding honey in their gaze as he looks at Ian. Mickey's been cold before, frost and bitterness icing his features, hardening them, so he could withstand. Let it freeze and paralyze him, felt it like soaked clothes weighing him down and shivering his bones, but it was just a background. As far as he was concerned, the blizzard was just there. Survival of the fucking fittest. ' _The sun don't fucking shine round this neighbourhood kid, and you need to stop being a pussy by looking for it. News flash : you ain't gonna find it. Just a fucking punch in the face.'_

His dad was wrong. Knows he is just by the way he thinks if the fucker had found it, maybe he wouldn't have been the dad he knew. He himself would probably be marching behind him, in the shadow he cast, if Ian hadn't barrelled his way in with a tire iron, wasn't dragging his finger over the skin of his calf, staring at him like he's seeing him for the first time.

“You know how I showed you that night,” Ian reminds him, can almost hear the moans in his head, curses the shame in missing the incomparable exctasy, endless energy.

Mickey hums. “Wanna show me again?”

“Gotta see you wearing it. And don't put it on, I like what you're wearing now.”

“Asshole,” Mickey clucks, looking down at his bare skin. “Gonna tell me the tale of how you got this?”

Ian shifts a little, but doesn't take away his finger from where it's drawing invisible patterns. “Before I left I went to the house. Nobody there anyway, so I just walked around. Spent a while in your bedroom, found out you had creepier shit than I thought,” he ducks and snorts when Mickey lightly slaps his leg, “bounced on the bed a little bit. Then I felt bad for everyone else when we were in there.” Mickey's smiling at him, with his eyes, and it's transcedent, talking of the past through the present. “Found it in one of the drawers. I remembered how much you liked it, how fucking perfect it would be for this place.” Ian squeezes Mickey's leg and continues. “Just wanted to see that house one more time, you know? But it just felt like I wanted to burn it down, without you or Mandy in it.”

Mickey nods in understanding before rubbing his nose. “Ain't the first one of us who thought about sending that shithole to the ground.”

“Should have done it, wouldn't matter now anyway,” Ian chuckles, and breathes gently when one of Mickey's hands comes up to stroke his cheek, pushing his strands back.

“Thank you,” Mickey murmurs, and Ian feels the nerves tingle behind his eyes, watering them.

Remembering his body can let him cry feels like a discovery he makes whenever Mickey's touching him. Swinging bolted doors he didn't even look at, open, open, open. The urge to run and hide feels distant.

Mickey's thumb grazes over his cheek, smearing the wetness Ian hadn't known was there. Mickey doesn't ask. He sees the tear and accepts it, catching parts of Ian that are overflowing with his thumb, while scratching along his scalp. Ian feels as though they might never stop, dams being broken as he desperately tries to salvage them, even though only two trails paint his cheek. He goes to open his mouth, but Mickey just whispers, “You don't gotta.”

The nerves tap into more with the sound of his voice, he can see through the blurry facade of his eyes his name, scribbled and carved with a jagged needle and with the trembling hands of a boy in the dark, and Ian wonders why he's the one fucking crying. He wants to say something but the words are stuck in his jaw, daggers in his throat. The sound of early rising birds, mexican birds, floating through the gap of the window in the roof. The road of his journey is fading and he can see the horizon and the road that's pathing itself in front of him. He's so far, far from where he thought he would always be, accepted and resigned himself to always be. Far from the numbing disappointment in waiting on people he hoped would be here to see him now. Far from every sleepless night, curled fist, burnt lungs and reckless abandon. Far from the person he'd planned to be and the person who crushed the dream. They're ghosts that follow the person he is.

It's all he's ever known, left behind but carried with him, pain and denial and specks of happiness, molding the heart he'll always have. He hears Mickey's soft breathing from beaten lungs; feels the tenderness from callous fingers that have broken bones yet make his existence feel like it isn't slipping through his fingers, and he knows he's going to be all right. Better than all right. He knows that he's closer to grasping everything he was too illusioned to believe he wanted. The sun will welcome him and he will taste raw freedom, in a foreign place. Anywhere is home if Mickey is there with him.

A drop lands on Ian's bent knee, and he can't help the wet laugh that comes out his mouth. Mickey just looks at him, eyes searching him, searching inside, trying to understand. “I'm here,” Ian explains, like it explains everything. “I've crossed the finish line.”

Mickey smiles.

* * *

The descent is like being eased into a warm bath, carefully guided and welcoming, regaining sensation in his body, dipped into reality. He'd gotten used to the violent drag and rough shove of landing into consciousness, ripped from a world where he could breathe and laugh, could run and cry, could love, and thrown into the vacant bed and the thin sheets, willing to dive back into the light, the senseless, but rubbing his tired eyes and shuffling away.

He knows this feeling. The one where he flexes his toes and hears his heart beat, stretches his dormant bones, and listens to the breathing beside him, holds onto the warmth like it might run away from him. He's not afraid to blink away the bright backdrop because he knows that lucidity is worth more than anything his mind could conjure up – that trailing his knuckles softly over Mickey's hip is something he would spend every waking moment doing.

“Go back to sleep,” Mickey mumbles into the otherwise silent space, and Ian breaks out into a chuckle, grips his hip and inhales the smell he chased in every room and every neck for months until his lungs can't take anymore.

“Am asleep,” Ian mumbles back, because it feels like he is.

“Tell that to your little friend,” Mickey grumbles, shifting and dragging his shin along Ian's.

“Not little,” Ian corrects, now painfully aware of every movement Mickey makes and how their skin feels when it might as well be one.

“And tell Mr Ego to pull the blinds too,” Ian can hear the smile in Mickey's voice.

He barely rolls over, enough so that he's facing the ceiling. When he lets the world in, it's wooden and blue. The ceiling is rusted oak, carved around the window, granting view into the outside. It's a layer of untouchable azure, falling into space, with no apparent barriers. A clear blue sky, broken off partially on the side by branches that are still dressed in their foliage, matters of green pressing against the glass. The auroral radiance of the sun's spectre is hidden by the shade, but Ian can feel it coming through in waves of heat, gathering under the sheets and between the minimal space where one limb starts and the other's finishes. The distant sound of the ocean filters through.

There's no chaos and voices to be drowned out, no distant waning of a siren circling the neighbourhood. There's no routine set waiting to be jumpstarted, no retracing of repeated actions and sights, no foggy foreshadow leaking through just from being in the Southside ; from being Ian Gallagher, born and raised on those pavements and crushing them with his feet over and over again, running through the streets on days where his blood had never felt so right than mixed with the grittiness of the walls, felt the slushy snow and abandoned buildings were engrained in him, overgrown vines and weeds twisting around the beams of the L, doing the same with his veins, when he'd measure himself in his bedroom. Always growing so fast, Fiona would say.

He looks over at Mickey in the sleeping position he's always had, tucked on his side with his face buried in his pillow, hand beneath it, and facing the door. He used to spend his restless nights when he thought everything might disappear if he closed his eyes, watching Mickey sleep. His eyes would flutter and Ian knew he was never far away, just beyond the line of consciousness, so he'd stroke his hair sometimes or lay soft kisses upon his skin, hoping they would somehow make their way to wherever Mickey was and tell him it's okay, he can let go.

He shuffles back to where he'd fallen asleep, pressed against his back, and starts nuzzling his shoulder with his nose, rubbing his cheek on the body that holds his favourite heart. “Wake up man,” Ian whispers.

Mickey just curls his lips upwards and burrows further into the pillow.

“C'mon, we're in Mexico,” Ian says, with more conviction, but keeping up the contact of his face with every part of reachable skin.

“Been here for a while, that ain't news,” Mickey quirks an eyebrow, and Ian can see the smile pulling at his lips.

“Yeah,” he replies simply, then next to his ear, “but _we're_ in Mexico.” He can't help the grin that splits on to his face from saying it out loud.

“You sound pretty pleased about that, Shortcake,” Mickey chuckles.

Ian takes that as his cue to drop the gentle approach and flips Mickey onto his back, hearing the short surprise burst out of his mouth before he settles on top of him, taking in his tousled flop of hair stick up, the way his nose scrunches up and his eyes are creased from the pillow but bright and easy. “Maybe I am,” he settles on saying, but the grin counters his teasing downplay.

“Good,” Mickey grins back, “then you know this ain't one of them countries that didn't wanna sign that basic human rights paper cause they wanted to bust down people's doors when they're sleeping and shit.”

Ian rolls his eyes and skims them over Mickey's chest, always pausing for a short moment over the ink, faded with time and healing, no longer angry with venom and cold pain. He darts his eyes back up to Mickey's, already looking at him softly. He feels like he could cry again, but instead he leans down to press kisses in the crook of his neck, inhaling.

“Levántate,” He whispers.

Mickey's eyebrows ascend at light speed. “You learnt Spanish?”

“You didn't?”

“Aye, I'm fucking getting there alright,” Mickey says, “didn't know you were Dora the Explorer.”

Ian holds back a smile. “You watch Dora?”

The morning light highlights Mickey's bed softened features, the slight furrow of his brows, the playful glint in his eyes, fruitlessly trying to muster snark. “Pendejó.”

“Fuck does that mean?” Ian asks, before he can stop himself. One of Mickey's eyebrows climbs in revelation.

“What, Dora ain't got that programmed into her?”

“You would know,” Ian snorts.

Mickey's middle finger is up in his face before he can finish the last word and Ian's hand grabs onto his wrist, drags him onto his lap when he balances them into position reversal, while Mickey pretends to struggle but wedges Ian's hips in between his legs all the same. Ian's got a smile plastered on his face from where he's looking up at Mickey, warmth hugging him and his heart delightfully pumping away, happy to be keeping Ian alive.

Mickey's smiling down at him too, tattooed fingers coasting Ian's chest, and it's hard to remember his face bruised and battered, fear painting his eyes. He's always been beautiful to Ian, who would try to hold the rose no matter how many times its thorns prickled his bleeding hand. He's beautiful and it's squeezing his chest, to fathom how he so desperately tried to turn away from it.

Ian's hand snakes up along Mickey's bare back, and in a silent energy agreement, they meet halfway, eyes shining all the way until they're cross eyed. “Hola,” Ian mumbles, lips brushing Mickey's. “Hey,” Mickey mumbles back, but the sound is lost somewhere between where they collide, where they press together with softness of lips and the fervor of two beating hearts trying to reach each other. It's a game of pulling away, pushing in, smiles never breaking, and always searching. Kissing Mickey is like finding himself.

It becomes something else, when it starts to feel like they have hands only to brush and touch every part of skin, settling on an erratic gentleness in tracing over every curve, dip, scar, bump, over the map they've both already visited but will never tire of. Their mouths don't disconnect and there's a bold relief in knowing the clothes are already thrown away from last night.

Ian's kissing along the bone of Mickey's jaw, grasping for his hand and holding it above their heads, following the path of every sigh and gasp falling from his mouth. He moves down to where his name is carved, and kisses it, hesitantly, before locking his gaze with Mickey, panting quietly. He kisses it again, trying to restore warmth where he'd been so cold before.

He then finds the echo of Mickey's heart, where it reverberates against the surface of his neck, and he kisses it, over and over, hoping somehow he's lacing Mickey's blood with everything his body screams but gets stuck somewhere along the way.

“C'mon Ian,” Mickey breathes, because he knows that saying his name drives him crazy, so Ian does what he's told, dives them into that secret place only they know. Mickey smiles wildy through it all, and Ian is breathless when he smiles back.

* * *

“Time is it?” Ian asks, within the confines of the bathroom. He knows he's delaying washing down his pills, as he fumbles with the tap and familiarises himself with the functioning of the shower. He hums while he turns the knob and alternates between hot and cold, to find his preferred temperature, ignoring the minor shake in his hands.

“Time to get my stomach to shut the fuck up,” Mickey replies groggily, voice muffled from the space between them. “It's gotten real demanding lately, forgotten all the hard times.”

Ian chuckles right as the water descends in sweltering heat, on the cusp of burning him, igniting the pleasure in his nerves throughout his entire body. He switches it off, satisfied he's found the pressure point his body likes, and goes back to the blued tiled sink. “Stomachs never stay humble,” he says, loud enough so that Mickey can hear it, “I remember when Fi got payed enough for us to skip the recycled oats for a while, and when we sunk back down to the recycled oats again, mine couldn't fucking _stomach_ them.”

He smirks to himself, picturing the unimpressed look Mickey is most likely sporting right now, sprawled out on the covers. He feels the spring mounting inside him, watching his own every movement, knowing he's one step away from giving in. He thinks of how easy it would be to forget he even had his pills with him, excitement already rising from the mere thought of never seeing them again. He closes his eyes, focuses on his heart thumping away, like it knows too.

What is he doing? The unabashed hysteria fades into the background, pushed back until shame and nausea have taken up first place, grabbing onto his barely floating body and dragging it back to the ground. He listens to the gradual hush of his heart, deliberately channeling his exhales into measured breaths, slowly clearing the way of all the blinding fog he'd stupidly succumb to.

He curses himself for the short loss of control, wishes he could crawl out of his skin, leave it behind and drift through the ocean, weightless and untouchable. He opens his eyes, facing himself in the reflection bounced back to him from the mirror plastered onto the cupboard above the sink. He blinks reflexively when he half expected to see someone from the past, dark circles and shadowed eyes, looking back at someone he didn't recognize. But his hair is bright in the artificial light, chaotic and ruffled the only way it could be after being tugged on and smoothed back down and buried into bed sheets and pillows. His eyes hold a glimmer he never thought he'd see again. Where he hasn't tended to it, short stubble frames his jaw, but it's not unkempt or a warning sign.

He knows Mickey likes it.

He doesn't want to run.

He looks at himself one last time before stepping out of the four indigo walls and into the wide central area.

“You took a while,” Mickey says, stubbing out a cigarette in his ashtray and walking towards him, looking boldly smiley, “Had the shits or something?”

Ian shrugs a little, fishes in his backpack for the rattling orange bottles. “No, but I will have in a minute,” he offers, grimacing slightly at why this has to happen.

He hates how the shame feels like a vibrant, flagrant shirt he's wearing, hates how nervous he feels, when it's Mickey, in front of him. But Mickey is probably thinking, _right, this guy has to take medication for the rest of his life or he goes bonkers or completely dead. And, he fucking broke up with me cause he didn't want to take them, wanted to stay crazy. What lump of mess did I bring here again?_

Ian blinks open when he feels Mickey's presence right beside his, who's trying to not show his awkwardness but shifting the weight on his feet. Ian doesn't blame him, travelling back to the rejection, the reluctance, the stormy eyes and venom words that used to come out when Mickey and the pills blended. They weren't supposed to. Mickey was real, he was tough, him and Ian were supposed to outlive and weather whatever hurricane or tornadoe, not give into some stupid life sentence of drugs, supported by pharmacies who told him that what was in his mind wasn't real. He couldn't bear to watch Mickey side with those who betrayed him, thinking he'd gone from holding his hand through the raging winds to standing alone, clinging on to a stray branch, with Mickey's eyes on him, watching him be destroyed. Then, he threw Mickey out of it all, couldn't let him suffer the destruction all bursting from him, starting with him and ending with him.

“You got enough?” Mickey asks, looking at him as though giving up on him is the last thing on his mind, instead tracing his fingers over Ian's knuckles, hanging by his hips.

Ian swallows, nods, “For a while.”

Mickey nods thoughtfully. “You know we'll keep getting some, right?” He asks; holding more pressure in between their fingers, and Ian grabs onto his wrist, finding his hand, knowing Mickey has always been on his side, in the storm or out of it. “Rob a fucking pharmacy if we have to.”

“Gee Mick, I'd never guess you were a fugitive,” Ian smirks, feeling lighter and lighter, warmer and warmer, especially when Mickey shoots him a look, chuckling.

“I ain't down here,” Mickey says, sticking his tongue out. “Let's get some food in you before you shit your guts out.”

Ian smiles at him, new blue sleeveless shirt hugging his chest and revealing his not so pale arms, the way they flex on occasion and frame his beautiful body. His dark hair has grown out enough to welcome back some disobedient strands, falling around his forehead. Ian wants to pick him up and drag his tongue over his collarbone, stay in bed for another few hours, but his pills need to be washed down and his stomach is churning.

He settles for a grin. “You look good.” Mickey's face is already magnifiently bright, but it enhances with the faint glow on his cheeks.

“Not bad yourself,” he smirks. They keep their gazes locked while they smile, can almost hear the other's heart beat, or maybe it's their own. Mickey scratches Ian's scalp with his hand, rubs his neck. “And you're doing good.” Their heads find a middle ground, foreheads bumping and sighing at the contact. “Really good,” Mickey repeats, and Ian can't find the words so he fidgets forward until he can kiss him, letting his hand glide over his arms and neck, pulling back with Mickey's bottom lip.

“Need coffee,” Mickey mumbles.

“You don't have any here?”

“Nah, I eat in the house,” Mickey says, slipping into his sandals. “Antonio makes the meanest huevos rancheros, but don't want to bring 'em to me, I fucking tried.”

“Antonio?” Ian questions, frowning. It comes with a strange sensation – one of knowing he's jumping on a ride that Mickey's been driving for months. Mickey talks of a life he's accustomed to, one he's been swimming in for a while, and Ian's diving in for the first time.

“Yeah. Let's go, it'll make shit easier if you can actually see who I'm talking about.”

* * *

In the dark, with his sweaty hand clammed in Mickey's being pulled inside, Ian had zoned out on his surroundings. The tall grass grazing his legs just a particle of dust falling to the floor; none of Ian was available to the world except the one swinging the door open and ripping off his shirt.

That's why in the morning daylight, it all hits him instantaneously, the exposure and the colours and reality arriving in a rush. The first thing Ian notices is how green it is, unattended grass, tall alongside the man made path, travelling from the porch of the mobile home and stretching beyond where Ian can see. The towering tree Ian had seen parts of from the bed rises above past the mobile and bends backwards, still carrying its leaves throughout winter. Where he spent the night is a maroon home sized bunk, with a tree bark porch and windows, steady among the jungle like it grew from the soil too.

“Took me a while to get used to it too,” Mickey says from behind, where he's patiently waiting on the path for Ian to take it all in. “Fuckton of green round here, Mother Nature had a fun time.”

The wonder of it all sinks through Ian's skin, already bathing in the sun's majestic beam, and it feels too good to be true. Especially when he makes his way over to where Mickey's standing and pulls his cheeks between his hands to bring him closer and bumping his head against his. Ian's smiling when he pulls back, looking into Mickey's sun kissed eyes. “It's fucking beautiful.”

“You ain't even seen the beach yet,” Mickey says, and Ian smiles wider.

He was vaguely aware between jumping off buses and catching taxis that he was somewhere else, he hazily noticed slurred English wasn't being shouted by locals outside the bars, that none of these people knew who he was, nor had ever been scammed by his deadbeat dad who he unwillingly expected to find in one of the alleys. He knew the streets weren't bearers of the past, didn't hold memories like phantoms in the open air.

He'd been clutching his coffee stained postcard like it might fly away, and constantly wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, trying to calm the angst he wore like a second layer. He was looking through windows and talking broken Spanish to people he'd never met, all with the thought of Mickey driving him forward. He imagined what Mickey did when he arrived in a stolen car and with nothing, no destination or plan, and he felt his heart sink to his feet, vision blurry with guilt.

Through it all, being in another country had just been a given, a thought pushed to the back. He knew he was no longer in America, supposed land of the great and land of the free, but that had never been true. Not for him, anyway.

Ian walks beside Mickey, letting their shoulders brush while their arms sway. Ian's alternating between staring at the sights around him and glancing at Mickey, who's secretly smiling and staring ahead. They round up to the back of a house a few steps later, not extravagantly big but not small either, and inward looking. The path leads up to the back porch.

Ian scans the auburn bricks, the pillars maintaining the structure. “Didn't even notice this last night.”

“Had your eyes on another back end, huh?” Mickey says, smirking and Ian just shoves him lightly, trailing behind when he yanks open the stiff door. The corridor is decorated with tapestries and paintings, smells like incense, coffee and fresh air. Voices distorted come through the cracks of a closed door, and Mickey is about to open it when Ian grabs his arm softly.

“Wait,” he hisses, ignoring Mickey's look of confusion, “Are they good?” Nothing changes on Mickey's expression, except he seems to impossibly scrunch his eyebrows closer together, so Ian reels in closer, whispers cautiously, “You know, am I pretending to be an exotic guy visiting his cousin Vladimir working abroad or just Ian from Chicago with his fugitive boyfriend?”

“First of all, you look like a walking snow cone with fucking carrot flavoured ice cream on top, ain't really selling the exotic part,” Mickey huffs increduously, and Ian shrugs defeatedly, watching Mickey's face do that thing where it can't stop moving and it looks like his whole body is speaking. “Second of all, Vladimir, really bitch?”

They quietly move in the corridor, careful to not make too much noise. “C'mon, the blood sucking thing could be kinda hot.”

“Pretty sure if one of us had to turn out to be an immortal blood sucking fucker it'd be you,” Mickey says. “Nobody has hair like that man, gotta be from like 300 years ago or something.”

Ian levels his gaze with his. “So you're dating a guy way past your age?”

“Not the fucking same, you don't look like you're about to kick the bucket and your dick works. That's your thing not mine,” he retorts, breezing over it playfully but not covering the resentment he stills holds for all the men too old to even have kids, putting their hands on Ian.

Ian shoots him an unmenacing glare, willing the subtle discomfort he feels in the pit of his stomach when increments of times of his life come crawling through the cracks of walls he'd put up, when he used to search for things he would kick himself for now. Fucking Frank and the issues he unknowingly inflicted on him. “I'm with you, aren't I?”

Mickey shrugs, still playing along, “I don't know, could just be waiting for me to start sprouting the grey hair downstairs.”

That earns him an eye roll from Ian. The corridor space is airy and the sun strokes them, the walls powerless against the force. He strokes Mickey's cheek, leaving trails of warmth the star can't give. “So I can say I'm Ian?”

Mickey nods, “Think they put two and two together already.”

Ian frowns, looking to where Mickey's eyes converge towards his chest, where his blue tank shields the skin over his heart. “You showed them?” Ian asks, startled at how startled his voice sounds.

“It's like a sauna here, wasn't gonna walk around in a fuckin' eskimo jacket,” Mickey snorts. “I survived the joint, think I could handle this. Not gonna hide it forever.”

Ian blinks, not even sure what he wants to say but feeling a lump in his throat, maybe it's the minor nausea from realizing what he hadn't even thought of, or maybe he'd chosen to ignore it, when he got into the habit of giving the silent treatment to voices he knew were his own. Maybe it's hearing a truth that's been in his heart for a long time but time didn't let it beat through his body – that Mickey doesn't hide him, doesn't want to hide him.

He remembers how he watched Mickey blurt it out into the interrupted overwhelming silence of the Alibi room, when everything was hazy around the edges and the ground was collapsing under his feet and the crash was approaching but Mickey was catching him, he was catching him, looking at him with the fear and the wonder of it all. It felt like Mickey had caught him, that night, when Ian hooked his arm around his waist, and fell asleep with that same truth beating in his heart. Things went dark after he shut his eyes.

He's about to speak when the door opens, followed by the presence of a tall, curly haired man.

“Los tortolitos!” he exclaims, “We thought you might never get up.”

Ian listens to the way his Spanish tongue hugs the words and releases them softly into the air.

“Your huevos rancheros got my ass up,” Mickey says, and Ian puts a name to the face, Antonio. He has just enough time between exchanges to feel his mind discerning and mulling over all the thoughts that come with his boyfriend being around this guy for months.

“Soy Antonio,” Antonio says, “you're Ian?” Ian nods, brushing his knuckles along Mickey's wrist. “That is some hair de fuego you have, pelirojo.”

Ian chuckles, hearing Mickey say, “Waste no time with the nickname, huh?” “

I call people things that stand out the most on them, Gringito,” Antonio laughs. “You coming to eat?”

The kitchen space is like a boxed sun, radiating brightness with yellow painted walls and full of character, nooks and crannies and pots and pans and traditional artefacts scattered around. Steam is seeping from the top of the cooker, adjacent to spices and seasoning, and Ian suddenly tunes in to the loud, delicious smell riding the air. Mickey's already by the coffee pot when Ian allows himself to look at him and not spend too much time statically taking it all in.

Antonio passes by in front of him, quickly garnishing the table with the tools to eat. He's about to offer to help when he realises it's completed. He's watching Mickey, entranced by the way he makes the entire room feel like home, like Ian has no place in his body to feel out of place or overwhelmed because the feeling that comes with seeing Mickey move around like he's been here his entire life has taken all of the space up. He's thinking about kissing him when Antonio coughs next to him.

“Gringito always needs coffee,” he says.

Nostalgia of time he didn't even live creeps up on him, time where others got to see Mickey doing things Ian always thought of as his things only he knew about him, little things he would let his mind drift to in moments of solitude. “Yeah,” he smiles. “You call him Gringito cause he's white as a sheet?” “

Si,” Antonio nods, “and we add the 'ito' cause he's small.”

“Small white man?”

“Exactamente.”

Ian laughs, loudly. Antonio laughs too. He's still hiccuping when he catches Mickey's gaze, looking utterly unimpressed at the table.

“You two fuckers better not be laughing at me,” he warns without malice, Ian can even recognize the faint trace of a smile.

Antonio deposits the breakfasts on the table, even in front of a currently vacant chair. The meal looks better and smells better than anything Ian's eaten. The pan glistens with the use of a bunch of things he couldn't name, bursts of colour, emanates the touch of fine cuisine, not that Ian really has much to compare it to.

“Jesus, did those eggs come from royal chicken's asses?” Ian asks out loud.

Antonio makes an amused sound. “Son pollos en libertad, free chickens,” he says, cutting into his food, “makes all the difference.”

“Sounds like royal to me,” Mickey mutters, sharing a smile with Ian, who's trying to not lean over and gracelessly smother his face, drawing his gaze away from where his tongue keeps making an appearance.

“We aren't eating with a ghost, by the way,” Antonio says between moutfuls, “I set a place for Abuela because she likes to take her time in the mornings.”

Ian swallows what he's chewing, bobbing his head to signal he's about to speak. “Abuela means grandma, right?”

“Good one pelirojo, Antonio congratulates, looking at Mickey across the table. “He knows more Spanish than you.”

Mickey opts for showing his middle finger, Ian knocks his knee against his. There's a warm comfortableness settling in his heart. “Frank,” Ian says, “my dad,” he adds, once he's remembered he's no longer surrounded by people who would all have the same rotten instant image in their minds at the name, “set up this shelter for a bunch of Hispanic people in our backyard once. Caught on to a few things.”

“Fucking Frank,” Mickey scoffs. “Wouldn't be surprised if we found his deadbeat ass down here.”

Antonio laughs, seemingly unfazed by the conversation. “Los padres,” he shakes his head, ringlets bobbing, “or sometimes it's better to just call them sperm and ovary providers.”

Ian chuckles, and Mickey makes a noise of approval, both of them tasting the bitterness on their tongues when talking of those who made them. By the look in Antonio's eyes, Ian thinks they might all be concerned, momentarily distracted into imagining what Antonio's childhood was like, what stinging memories he has stored away. Hooks his ankle around Mickey's when he doesn't need or want to imagine what his childhood was like. Sips his coffee and feels the worn wooden table under his elbows when shit of his own past tries to resurface.

They all share a brief moment of exchange without words, before picking up their forks again.

“Well, you must have poderes, pelirojo,” Antonio remarks, “nunca he visto Gringito tan sonreír por la mañana. Never have I seen Mickey smile so much in the morning.”

“El poder del amor,” A voice from behind says, soft but strong, accompanied by light shuffling. Ian turns in time to see Abuela, surprised when his expectations of a grandma subside when resting his gaze upon the woman, thick locks of dark hair covering her bare shoulders, big bright eyes catching the sun rays, a gentle but imposing presence.

“El poder de la verga,” Mickey smirks, pleased with himself, ducking slightly when she playfully tugs on his cheek after embracing Antonio.

She sits at the opposing seat of Ian, facing him with a curious but welcoming smile. “I hope you didn't try to run from the cops with that hair,” she says, grinning.

“We call him pelirojo,” Antonio informs her, and she seems delighted with the news.

“Me gusta,” she says, “Bienvenido, Ian, o pelirojo.”

He smiles at her, until the conversation sweeps them up again and there's laughing and the sound of china mugs touching the table and cutlery scraping up all the food. Through it all, Ian can't stop glancing at Mickey. The way his inked fingers, the only fingers that have ever felt right on his skin, hold his fork and wrap around his coffee and tap on the table, thinks he notices the way they seem to instinctly reach out towards where Ian's own hand lies. Ian looks at how his hair is still as charcoal black as it's always been, barely longer to most eyes but he knows, he felt the difference when his nose buried into it.

His eyes catch him the most – eyelashes dusting over them in the light, the way they dart around the table, look at the two people he's built his new life around. It strikes him how open he looks, still frowning and grumbling and cursing, but without weighed down shoulders, without wary glances and twitching knuckles. He's comfortable, Ian thinks, he's happy. And it comes with this strange melancholy merging with a surge of pride, and it almost hurts, almost in a good way. Then Mickey looks at him, and Ian can't muster the will to pretend he wasn't already doing the same thing, so he looks back, feels his heart beat in his chest at the way Mickey's eyes have never changed in how they make Ian feel. The only gaze Ian has ever felt alive through.

“Alright, I have to work,” Antonio says, clearing the plates, and Ian reluctantly tears his eyes away from Mickey's, to find Abuela's resting fondly upon him. “You coming Mickey?”

“Aye, you said I had the day off.”

“You do,” Abuela confirms.

“Messing with you,” Antonio says between travels from the table to the sink, Ian getting up and joining him with clearing, “You can have your day of holiday and then tomorrow, trabajamos.”

“Alright Stalin,” Mickey jokes.

Ian finds himself at the front of the house, waiting for Mickey to come up beside him to start walking off the front porch and onto the pebbly pathway, grains of sand dotted around everywhere. The salt is already permeating the air, and Ian breathes it in, feeling it in his lungs.

“They seem nice,” Ian says, once they've stepped out of the pathway and coast the sidewalk.

Mickey looks like he wants to reply with something snarky, but decides against it. “Yeah, don't think I coulda landed with better people.”

Push away the doubt, push it away. “Can't believe I'm in Mexico,” Ian says, voice laced with disbelief.

“The really fucking spicy food give it away?”

Ian chuckles, as they approach the beach, stops to take off his shoes, under Mickey's soft gaze. “Gotta feel the sand.”

Mickey slides out of his sandals too, hooking them between his fingers. The concrete from the sidewalk crunches under their beaten feet, suddenly giving way to the feathery sun baked ground, and Ian's breath stutters when he feels the way the warmth envelops and glides between his toes, the way his skin moves with the millions of grains of sand. Mickey must have done this countless times since he's been here, but he looks like he's experiencing for the first time too, glancing at Ian as they make their way down to the shore.

The sun is high but seems so close. They tred down the small slope that leads to the ocean, everything is so warm, everything around him, everything inside him. Ian's fingers go to twine with Mickey's, briefly struck by fear of a mistake, gone like a cold whisper overpowered by the sun when he feels Mickey's twine through his.

“That's the ocean for ya.”

The endless expanse of the ocean, how he can only sieze so little of what it is, feels like finding something crucial and essential to his existence, blinking when he realises he could have gone an entire lifetime without ever smelling the heavy freshness of the salter water, would never have heard the gentle crash of its ever lasting movement, always brushing the shore. He's smiling.

“Did you learn how to swim, Mick?”

Mickey nudges his nose with the pad of his finger. “Been real busy, didn't have the time.”

“Bullshit,” Ian laughs, turning to face him, hearing the pound of his heart when seeing Mickey basking in the light and heat, as natural and necessary to him as the sun, the ocean and the sky. “You're gonna learn.”

“Ain't gonna happen, Mermaid Man, you can go get your ass eaten by sharks and shit and I'll watch,” Mickey says, doing nothing but increasing the width of Ian's smile.

Mickey doesn't stand a chance when Ian drops the conviction through speech and takes matters into his own hands, matters being Mickey's ass held up by his arms, carrying him on his back into the ocean. The iciness of the season is bearable, with Mickey's body wrapped around his.

“You're a dead man Gallagher,” Mickey warns, through spouts of laughter and grousing.

Ian splashes water around, feels it dripping off his forehead, watches it fall down where it came from. “Yeah,” he says, grinning. “I know.”


	2. This Mess Was Yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> annnnd we're back! 
> 
> i decided to submit this for GW2017 with the theme of mexico, cause i thought it would be really fun and would give me an excuse to deadline myself, which i haven't conluded on whether that's good or bad, but at least it got me to quit the shit and post.
> 
> this hasn't been beta'd. 
> 
> title of chapter from vance joy - mess is mine!

**PART II.**

 

“Sure you have to go?” Ian asks again, the look he receives from Mickey enough indication that he's prodded his fair share for the morning. “Call in sick or something?”

“Yeah, that'll make for nice conversation when I sit down to eat breakfast with the guy who pays my checks looking like I just won the jackpot,” Mickey scowls, bending over to smoothe out a discarded shirt, the one that Ian thought complimented him so well he just had to throw it near the fridge.

Ian smiles to himself, looking up through the roof window at the morning light. “Maybe I should eat your ass,” he wonders curiously, sensing the halt of movement on Mickey's behalf, “make you get real red and sweaty. Think it could sell the story.”

The shirt flies, Ian already laughing before it's hit his face. He doesn't blink when the thin fabric covers his eyes and nose, he inhales softly before tugging it off to see what small smile Mickey is fighting with.

“Don't tease me with that shit man,” he says, interrupted by the rapid passing of another shirt he found on the floor finding its way to cover his bare skin, and Ian kind of hates it, especially when his branded name disappears under it. He can't tell if he's looked at it too much to make his eyes burn or if he burns from not looking at it enough.

“You're really into it aren't you?”

He shrugs dismissively, “I like what I like.”

There's some wakening feeling when he says that, the fleeting look on his face, pushing its way through, burdened with weight and heavy to let sit on Ian's chest. Mickey's gone where he's out of sight. Ian licks his lips, stares at the uncanny blue through the window. “Gonna do that more often. The ass eating, the beads, shit like that.”

Mickey steps back into view, hair flattened more than it the last time Ian saw it, brows furrowed slightly, like he's trying to figure out something. “Big decision to make on such a relaxed mornin', you sure you up to it?”

Ian huffs, smirking to the side enough to manifest this unnecessary rising need to prove himself to a man who knows him better than anyone else. “I'm not fucking vanilla, Mick,” He says, flipping the bird to the way Mickey's eyebrows deploy like birds themselves, taking flight, then in a quieter, softer tone, “And I wanna make you happy..” He swallows, steering himself, feeling how charged every word that comes out of his mouth is. “It's not a tough decision.”

Ian doesn't veer his gaze once, holding it from the strung out position on the bed. He observes the way Mickey reacts, his steeled position, molten sometimes, like strong iron that melts. He tries to catch the way Mickey blinks quickly for just a second, the way his eyes flitter and diverge to somewhere on the bed before bringing them back to Ian's. The way he somehow feels miles away, Ian's words echoing but not touching him. Ian sees him swallow, too.

“Don't need to taste my shit for that,” Mickey says, his voice laced with the same intensity of a whisper, and Ian's nodding rythmically without really knowing what to, “Don't need to do that for that.”

Ian breathes out a long exhale. The feeling from earlier, sitting on his chest like a monster reering its head and weighing him down is worse. His head is swimming but he can't tell if his heart's already drowning. Like there's fire and more light than there ever has been, like there are shadows casting themselves on the wall. Like Mickey is gold, and Ian is rusty metal.

“I want to, though.” If there's any time a language has ever been more fitting for two people, it's sex, between Ian and him. Their language. One that he's tried to speak with others but is hopeless. One written in only the carves of their skin and the memory of their muscles. If there's more to the language, Ian can't turn his back on it. Not when he sees now, how Mickey has tried to tell him but failed, unreciprocated. Not anymore. “I want to. Think it'll be hot as fuck.”

Mickey's expression molds into his playful one, his soft one, his teasing one. “Oh really? Tough guy really wants to give it a shot?”

“Yeah.”

There's a string of fire, dancing flames on the line their eyes are tied to. He can almost see them.

“Think you'd find it hot?” Mickey asks, Ian's body reacting to his voice as would gaslight to petrol, approaching the edge of the bed and planting his palms beside Ian's ankles. He crawls up slightly, pushing Ian's legs outwards, revealing his crimson tinted face, staring down at him, the most obvious form of proof that he is his and no one else's. “Think you'd get off on it too?”

“Maybe,” Ian whispers shakily, gripping the sheets from where he wants to touch Mickey in a way that would do more harm for him when he'd have to let go after. “Maybe not.”

Mickey's eyes are dark, even when they're still lighter than the blue beyond the roof. No one else, no one else. Ian's heart picks up when the black hair brushes his thigh, his mouth ghosting over parts of his skin that are begging for him. Mickey looks up at him. “I think you would.”

It snaps. The net of self control, tying him down. “Let's find out.”

He hears Mickey's breathy half laugh half gasp when Ian finds his waist and holds it like it'll run away from him. He drags Mickey over his worked up body, both of them breathing raggedly. They don't have time to speak before their lips take over for them, saying everything effortlessly.

Ian's grasp on him is like he might slip away, like a desperate man desperately salvaging pouring sand, seeping through the cracks in his hand. He's had him, and he's lost him, and he doesn't know if all of him will ever return to him. Maybe he broke too much, like a man who tipped the hourglass of time, wasting what he'll never get back. He wishes he weren't so damn sensitve, but it seems more sensical to wish for a past that didn't make him sensitive. He runs his tongue over Mickey's, breathing in the noises that surrender themselves from within.

“Can't fucking..,” Mickey mumbles without breath, stolen again when Ian pulls him back down, too weak to fight it. “Haven't got enough time,” he breathes again, the air whizzing through his lungs and puffing out into Ian's neck, warm and making him dizzy.

“There'll never be enough time,” Ian says, with words lining up behind it, that stay down and exchange with short exhales.

They lock eyes, Mickey's hand stroking over Ian's temple, rough around the edges but always so delicate whenever he touches him, “Don't need time.”

“What do we need?”

“Us.”

Two letters. Two people. Everything they are, that composes them, that they radiate, that they hide, that they destroy, fusioning together, merging into one another, melting under each other's hands. Ian can't help but let out a burst of laughter, quiet and for the blue eyes staring at him only. The one thing that has always succeeded in blurring edges and gifitng clarity.

“And the beach,” Ian smirks fondly.

“Not bad for hopeless dreaming in the can,” Mickey says, his eyes lying somewhere over Ian's tuff of hair, then letting his hand touch what his vision can't, blunt nails losing themselves in his mane. Ian lets out a sound that resembles one of purring, his eyes drifting shut.

He vaguely acknowledges the loss of Mickey's warmth and his presence, the faucet running, quiet shuffling around him. A hand intercepts his leg, a smile curling around the words, “Get up princess, cause there is time on work.”

 

* * *

 

_He could see his reflection, still in his position, superposed with faces of strangers beside him. As he looked on, unable to ignore his eyes boring into his own eyes, he supposed he was like a stranger himself. Ian's face faded, disappearing when they came upon tunnels, surfacing when harsh daylight pressed against the window. It was overlapped with fleeting glimpses of the world they travelled across, torrid and bare skins of land crackled with years of exposure, running alongside them. Other cars, the occasional pedestrian passerby, rows of depleted buildings and collections of broken saffron mountains._

_He voyaged, body tense and static, knees bumping and clustered with the back of the seat in front. His hands lay limply in his lap, fiddling with wire of his earphones, tangled and mingled, his absence of concentration only accentuating it. He couldn't help but stare at the face he saw in the window. His own. He wondered how he looked when he stood motionless, hours after he'd watched the green car cross the border, and spent most of it expecting the same green car to pull up beside him, passenger seat waiting for him and driver, the most beautiful driver, to say, “Get in, asshole.”_

_Gallagher. Mickey had said, fuck you Gallagher. And Ian had smiled, the strongest form of smile he could muster, at how it brought him back. Back to a time when he would've booked tickets himself, been the one pushing Mickey, shoving him, telling him to man the fuck up and get in the car, who the fuck knows where they would've gone, just far away, from here, from your dad, from this fucked up situation. Together._

_He'd done just that, barely seventeen, got on the bus, fuck knows what would happen, he just needed to get far away, from here, from your dad, from this fucked up situation, from you. Alone._

_He'd constricted his throat the entire ride, through the distortion and the bluriness, looking at the face in the window. Shattering inside, exhausted inside. He sniffled, dug the heels of his palms into his sockets, dragging them down his tired face. He didn't want to be called Gallagher, gruffly, softly, mumbled, hear anything, from that voice ever again. Fuck you Milkovich, he'd said silently._

_Now, looking out the window of a different bus, his cheekbones more defined, his hair longer, his eyes emptier, he wasn't running away. He was going home, to all that he'd risked leaving behind. He was going back to that place where he'd considered himself ruined, but now had stuff to hold on to. Proof of his recovery. Proof of his change. Proof that doing shit like this wasn't him anymore._

_He wondered what his face looked like when he said that. When he saw Mickey's face, Mickey's eyes, staring back at him. What did he see? Who was the person that he once knew, same heart, same voice, same touch, underneath the one telling him he'd gone?_

_He closed his eyes. He was tired. Too tired to look out the window and be faced with a face he didn't recognize. Too tired to think. Too tired to feel. A buzzing, distant but firm against his leg. He was ripped awake though he never fell asleep._

_It read,_

_**Monica's gone. Where the fuck r u** _

_At first, he just blinked, bleary eyes focusing on the scrawny digital writing. He saw the name of the person he half saw in his own reflection, his own fears, his own destruction. He read again. Gone. Monica always came and went, downpours of rain on days predicted complete sunshine. Too present to forget, too absent to cherish. His weakness. Or his strength._

_It took a long time for what he already knew to settle. Even then, it didn't, whizzing around his head until he he felt faint, until there was a low ringing zigzaging through his ears. His first instinct was to run. Let whatever mush resided parts of his mind give all control to his legs. Run until his lungs would squeeze and contract. Run to the only thing that would let him breathe._

_But the bus was headed in the wrong direction, every spin of the wheel dragging him further away from him._

 

* * *

There's a passing set of clouds on the horizon. They glide over the line like a herd of sheep being guided by a sheperd, the humid wind rising from the ocean strong enough to hurry them along. It clogs the ability to look beyond, the water rushing and calming under a white cloak.

Ian senses Mickey before he sees him, slowly crossing the space that separates them. The wind attacks his hair, blowing it around and he's close enough that Ian can see his grumbling. It always takes him by surprise how the sole sight of him is an effect on his heart. Still fearing, still roaring with excitement.

“Hey,” Ian beams at him when he's at talking distance, thick sand crumbling under his feet. “You look like you just stepped out of the Notebook.”

“Don't remember the dude using a spatula to slap the shit out of people,” He says simply, although his previously hardened features seem to have softened.

“Tough customers?” Ian asks, moving over on the sand to invite Mickey to sit next to him, even though the beach expands for miles.

“Ant put me on service for a while cause something came up with his kid,” Mickey explains, bending to sit beside Ian, scooting closer once he has, “Swear this thick headed prick had me running back and forth for his fat ass cause he couldn't handle the spice. Fuckin' tourists man. Why the fuck do you order extra hot if you got a mouth that can only handle fairy cakes.”

Ian listens, amused, because Mickey letting the world know it's pissing him off is one of his favourite things. He watches intently too, gaze grazing over his body. He's wearing another shirt he's never seen on him before, light colours and prints designed on them. Mickey swears they're shitty orders from Antonio to lighten up the workplace, but that doesn't cancel out the evident comfort and pleasure he gets out of wearing them. That in itself, is light.

“How long you got before you gotta go back to hell's kitchen?”

Mickey shrugs, “Told Ant I was meeting you and he knew better than to expect a quick return.”

The clouds have gathered, completely blanketing the sky. The water looks darker than usual, but Ian's jumping up, gripping the hems of his top and dragging it over his head. “Green light for swimming.”

Mickey's eyes are openly travelling along Ian's tall figure, tongue digging into his bottom lip. “You serious?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“You never seen those shitty horror movies that always start off with two dipshits thinking it'll be a good idea to play in water darker than my hair?”

“Told you,” Ian smiles, extending his hand and gripping tightly on to the one that joins it. He pulls Mickey up, stumbling forward slightly. “You aren't getting out of this.”

The nerves in his body ripple like the waves when Ian feels Mickey's hands, soft, strong hands, coasting over his bare hips, rubbing under his belly button. He sighs and almost immediately goes to attach his mouth to Mickey's neck.

“Not even that,” He stutters, prying Mickey's exploring hands away but keeping them in his grasp. Mickey lets out an aggravated huff, as he quickly darts looks around, shoulders unwinding at the thrilling sight of no one.

Mickey's afraid. It's been a long time since Ian first realised that Mickey was afraid, not the invincible, brash boy who could fix anything with his fists. He's come a long way, but fear follows, a shameful trail in its wake. Ian didn't always get it, but he does now. He wishes he had sooner. They both have shadows they could count over their shoulders, following them even in the dark.

“Trust me,” Ian says. It never used to be a question that arose. Standing in front of the massive ocean, it's all he can think of. It's more than the ocean. It's them.

Mickey's eyes snap up to his at the words, focusing left to right. There is no noise save for the crashing waves and the occasional seagulls, most of all, the sound of Ian's beating heart. One of his shadows feels like it's crawling up its back, when the silence stretches out and Mickey's eyes are unresponsive, distant. Mickey's afraid of a few things. One of them is him.

He breathes and takes Ian's hand. His thumb grips onto Ian's fingers like it would hurt him to let go. Ian swallows, nods, and leads them down to the tidal line. The tips of their toes tease the mounting stream of current, shivers gifted out. The water is colder than it has been recently. Neither seem to flinch, bracing themselves, hands fit tightly together. Their waists breach the shallowness, Mickey's soaked shirt flaying at the bottom.

“Ok?” Ian asks when they're at the right depth.

“Getting blue balls and not in the okay pain kinda way,” Mickey grouches, eyeing the water as he would an enemy. Their hands are still linked when he looks up at Ian, “We gonna teach me how to not be a drowning cat or wait for them to drop off?”

Ian smiles, the instinct so natural whenever he's around Mickey, as natural as the power to feel like the world is at stake with every look. He can't stop his free hand from roaming a little higher on his waist, over the originally feathery shirt now weighed down and sticking to Mickey's wet skin.

“Feels like you're happy about giving me blue balls.”

Ian smiles again, laughs even. They're in cold water, it flows and jostles them around with every retreating and coming wave, seeping through the cracks and passageways of their bodies, but they can't abandon what they've already started. Fix the ship rather than jump it and get swallowed by nothing.

“A bit,” Ian replies, staring at his eyes and forgetting that the sky is trapped behind the clouds. He's beautiful, pure by definition, striking by standards, thundering in his heart. He hopes Mickey reads it on his face, hopes this is one of those feelings that throw themselves to the exterior, so visible it reaches out to him. Ian knows he does when he sees the faint undertone of a blush, and the way Mickey bites his bottom lip unknowlingly, looking elsewhere.

“All right,” He lets go of his hand but stays close. “Swimming's in your mind, you see. Not really, but you're just a mind when you're in the water. Your body is barely there. You just got to learn how to let go, but stay in control, know what I mean?”

Ian's not sure Mickey is listening from how he's staring at him. His gaze so concentrated, following every movement of his mouth, every flicker of his eyelashes. He feels beautiful, when Mickey looks at him. Whole, maybe. His existence burning like a sun, Mickey merely a bystander yet igniting him higher than ever before. He hopes, he prays, to not a God, but to whatever rules the sea, that he makes Mickey feel the same.

“Don't know what the fuck you just said.”

 

* * *

_He walked through the door he walks through in his oldest memories. He expected it to bring him something, a sense of finality, of conclusion, an absolution in a mess. It didn't. It felt old, like he did, limbs aching and head thumping. An anticlimax in a story._

_He saw his brothers, he saw his sisters in the glow of the kitchen. They all froze momentatily at his appearance, conversation disrupted. Nothing looked like it changed. He didn't know what strange expectations he held, what unforeseeable and unfathomable ideas he had, that they would all be huddled, sorrow whispering through the big house, mourning the loss of one of them. But it seemed she never was._

“ _Where the fuck have you been?”_

_Ian looked at them individually, their gazes heavy upon him. They felt like steel bullets colliding with bullet proof glass._

“ _Uh, work,” he mumbled, catching their eyes again, especially Lip's and Fiona's. The silence extended for another second before they nodded, content with the answer, content with the situation. He knew he shouldn't drink, but the condensed drips from the beer bottle in his hand grounded him. He was floating above it all._

_Monica's gone, Lip had sent him. He wouldn't have expected more details than that, no unnecessary typing and credit use, but even breathing the same air as all these people who carry the same blood as her and himself, nothing seemed to burden their shoulders. Same old horsing around, a few off the hand comments about their Mom._

_This is who I am, this is where I belong._

“ _Hey, Ian?”_

_Ian lifted his head. He wanted to lie down, but instead he listened to Carl._

“ _Found some pills here, think they'd work for you?”_

_Ian smirked, not entirely sure what the inclination behind it was, bitterness, emptiness, amusement. Still, his little brother always did have a way of making things seem not as dramatic as they were. “The only kinda stability her pills would give me is a concrete jail bed.”_

_Carl looked nonplussed, examining the labels. The tubes were the same artificial orange as his ones. The doubt came in, no matter how naïve. He wanted to believe, for a second, that she tried. There would never be a chance for her to try, again. Never one to justify her trials, never one to prove herself. Never a redemption tale. Never a chance to be proud of her. Clinging on to the only evidence left, he wanted to believe that, even though it never blossomed, she had tried._

“ _Methylenedioxy-,” Carl srunched up his eyebrows. “Long ass name. You ever had anything like that?”_

_He smiled, again. There was no joy tugging at his cheeks. Just dull acceptance, maybe. Or something like closure. The high five from hopeless hope. “That's MDMA, Carl. Ecstasy. Would put me riiiiight on the happy spectrum. Good thing I don't even need pills to get there.”_

_Carl eyed him, gaze unreadable, then snapped back to the pills. Ian's hand smoothed over the back of the worn green couch, in front of the TV they've had since he can remember creeping behind the headrest where Frank grouched and sniffed, some naked women parading blaring through the screen. Ian had just crinkled his nose, and ascended up the stairs, willing every movement to be silent._

“ _All right buddy, I'm gonna crash,” Ian said, heaving himself up. The thought of crawling into his teenager sized bed rendered him lethargic, but the thought of staying up any longer was worse._

“ _Grandpa,” Carl snorted, but fist bumped him as he passed by him, stepping over his stretched legs on the coffee table. “Ian?”_

_Holding on to the handrail, his back to Carl, brain fuzzy, “Yeah?”_

_Carl didn't answer immediately. Ian knew the mechanics of his head were working overtime to get the words out, or right. “You think she ever loved us?”_

_Ian turned around, met with the view of the back of Carl's head. He knew that there was no need for eye contact. Sucking in a breath, steeling his heart, he replied quietly. “Yeah,” He nodded to himself, a spark of clarity pushing through.“Yeah, she did. In her own way, but... The only way she knew how.”_

_There was no answer, only the slight bob of understanding. Voices jingled through from the kitchen. The first time he'd been asked about her, spoken to about her, all night. Coming from the badass kid with the most functional care system in the family. He went back to pat his shoulder, musing that if Carl had made it this far with his heart, he could keep it for a long time._

_He collapsed on his bed, the springs squeaking as he moved around, hunched up on his side. Posters of a stolen dream, beholder of nightmares. His eyes burned from exhaustion, his mind swinging around the moon peeking through the thin blinds. He didn't tell himself to do it, fumbling around for his phone on the floor. It just happened that he was staring numbly at one of the recent numbers in his dial log, fingertips aching from something all the way inside._

_The room was silent, as close to silence you could experience with weak plastering and constant noise. A few hours before, he was on the bus. A few hours before that, he was envisioning his future, with butterflies in his stomach and tingling feet. He then slammed the door on it._

_He pressed his index to his lips and closed his eyes. Remembering. He waited for his eyes to overflow, to steam the water, for it to burn even more. Loss. He'd lost, today. By his own hand, by a hand much stronger than his._

_Nothing would come of it. There would be no recipient, but Ian changed the row of random numbers to a name. He typed out, ordering himself to stop and disobeying. He had no right. He had no right. He had no right._

_He threw his phone across the room, dug his nails into the sides of his cheeks and surrendered. Take me, he whispered, to a place where none of this could ever matter. Take me._

_In the darkness, the phone screen still lit, it read:_

_TO: **Mick**_

_**Monica died. She's gone** _

_**Maybe I'll carry on her legacy or some shit. Leaving. Coming back. Never letting you breathe, never giving you peace. Indecisive. Idk whu I'm typing this. You got away from this. Dodged a bullet.** _

_**Who the fuck knows where this'll even go. Hope u dumped the phone somewhere. Can't risk it.** _

_**rambling to no one. No one with your name. Still feels like I can breatghe for a second** _

_**I hope its hot where u r, cause it's fucking cold here. U'd be wearing like 3 sweaters and 2 scarves and that huge ass coat too big for ur small body** _

_**Feel like im drunk. Lets say I am. Hope mexico is cooler than here. Hope ure safe** _

 

_**im sorry mickey** _

 

* * *

__

The pattern is discernible. The needle, thin, nearly transparent, handled by careful, meticulous hands, carrying a string. It passes through, comes out the other side, then dives back in. It looked more difficult in one glance than it does now, every movement calculated and predictable. Ian tries to follow the repeat time after time, lost in the continuous fall and rise. It reminds him of the ocean, lifitng his eyes to watch the waves carress the sand and leave an imprint in their wake. Even when they left, they were still there.

“Why d'you knit?”

Abuela raises an eyebrow, continuing the string's journey. The front porch is hidden by shade, the light coming down like a dome all around their darkened space.

“¿Qué clase de abuela sería sino? What kind of abuela would I be if I didn't?” She clarifies. It's Ian's turn to raise an impressed eyebrow. Touché. “¿Y tú, Pelirojo? What's your excuse?”

Ian licks his lips and meets her inquired gaze. “I'm already pretty gay as it is, you know,” He shrugs, smirking when he hears her chuckle, a sound so airy and delightful he almost expects to see a young girl sitting beside him.

He can't remember or pinpoint the starting point of this routine. The mornings, the world as they see it still dim, when Ian would stand limply, staring at the ocean after staring at Mickey retreating down the path to his job, would coincide with Abuela sitting herself down in one of the wooden chairs on the porch, alternating between looking at Ian and looking past him, until she invited him to sit down too.

“What are you thinking about?”

Ian blinks reflexively, trying to relieve whatever expression his face had contorted to entail that kind of question. “Ah, nothing,” he says. There's a particularly strong wave building, the froth of its curl visible from the distance. He knows Abuela's not fooled.

“You know, you don't have to hide it, or pretend,” She says, Ian's heartbeat unwillingly picking up. “Calmaté, chico, I don't know anything. Mickey told me it wasn't his to share.”

Ian lets out a strangled breath, coughing a couple of times to regularize his circulation, wishing he didn't get so worked up, so nervous, after all these years.

“It's not,” he sighs, “It's not really about that.” Maybe it will always be a little about that.

He expects a reply, a comment, a sound, but when he turns to see, she hasn't discontinued her threading, the handmade creation harvesting details as time slips by. It prompts him to talk again.

“I don't really know what I'm doing.”

“Here?”

“No, not here. With.. with Mickey, I guess.” He looks down.

“Things aren't going well?”

A pause. “They're not.. wrong. Don't think it could ever be wrong,” He smiles crookedly. “Just don't know if everything is right either.”

“Do you talk about it?”

Ian shakes his head timidly. “Not really. We could go on forever without ever talking shit over. Just going with what we got, what we feel, you know.”

She hums. “But you think you need to talk about something?”

“Maybe.”

It's unsettling to talk of them, about them. Mickey and him have always been their own little mystery, their own private ship, fighting wars on board but never waving the white flag. In a bubble where logic and reason turn their heads away, unnecessary, unwanted. Things were never simple, never complicated. Outside influence was never sought. They just were.

“What is it, Ian? What bothers you?”

He stares, unwavered. Dominoes tackle each other, hitting the ground. His heart feels small in his chest. “I don't know if I can ever make up for what I did.”

 

* * *

 

_The funeral came and went, much like the frozen and still woman lying in the casket. Ian tried not to cry, when he stared down at her lifeless body. It was impeccably different from her shining face, untamed hair, when she was swallowing happy drugs all the time and relying on her brain chemistry to take her to the top of the world. Even when he got angry, even when his skin prickled with irritation and frustration, he could never help himself from smiling a bit too._

_She didn't look that much different from all the times he'd walk into a lightless room, submerged in obscurity, barely able to recognize her face. Not sure if she was breathing until he lay a hand on her shoulder, sensing the slow exhales and inhales. He used to want to tear the curtains to shreds and rip the sheet off her body, push her into the sun and shake her. He never saw that side of her after he replaced her in his boyfriend's bed, an unmoving heep begging to never see the light again._

_Frank spoke. He stood beside the polished mahogany, intentionally looking everywhere except it. The benches were vacant, save for those with her blood. She'd crossed paths with a lot of people, shook hands with them, shared beds with them, made promises to them. Never sustainable for heartfelt feelings. Never enough to care that her presence wouldn't grace them again. Like Fiona said, it's fucked up enough that she was even there for it._

_It wasn't like Ian was unaware of their relationship. He caught it briefly in between running for classes and stepping over their leftover goodies from a night of celebrating their reunion, for weeks at a time._

_He walked away from them when they would pair up in a moment of passing regret and devotion and through the spectres of pink filtered vision, thought it would be easy to set everything straight. Proclaim change and new beginnings, beg for forgiveness, pleading eyes and empty words. Frank always came out of his delusion quickly enough, shouting to shoo them away. Monica tried to fight a little longer. Even when the effects wore off, she tried. It was never enough, but it was something._

_He dodged them when their chaos would overflow and escape containment, objects flying and insults volatiling. Swearing they would never submit themselves to this mess again, swore that they were each other's own biggest mistake. The slamming of a door would, without fail, follow suit._

_That's why it surprised him that he clung to every word he said, listened to every word, feeling them. All other times Frank opened his mouth to spew nothing but bad breath, his voice was just noise. Unlike then, he heard it, for the first time. The rawness. The clawing at something so real, it could never sound anything less than what it was. They were in love, a description so common and simple for their fucked up ways. A love that would never be mounted. No matter the backlash and the repercussions and the pain, the love Frank spoke of, the love he emitted, was palpable._

_He checked his phone the second he stepped outside, hands trembling when the lock screen showed no message he unknowlingly prayed for. He could see the condensation in the air, blending with the smoke from Lip's cigarette when he joined him, fingerless gloves rubbing together. He handed Ian the lit stick wordlessly, that he brought to his lips shakily, inhaling a dragon's breath._

“ _Didn't even know she was dying,” He said, staring at the ground. “Did you?”_

_Lip looked tired. The caves under his eyes were sinking, his shoulders slumped. He hadn't properly talked with him since he got back from nearly saying goodbye to him, even though Lip had no idea. It was better that way._

“ _Nah,” He coughed. “Nobody knew apart from Frank. Would expect nothing less, what better Monica way to take off than to make sure your children know you only ever really gave a shit about their worthless dad, even though that on its own is debatable.”_

_Ian kicked at the floor. “You can't only see it as selfish.”_

_Lip looked up, the quirk to his mouth that meant he disagreed, but was half willing to listen. “Can't I?”_

“ _It was selfish. But the okay kinda selfish,” Ian took a drag, smoke curling around his words. “The selfish you use when you're scared, when you wanna protect people, or yourself, and not just for self benefit or whatever.”_

_They knew all about it. Common behaviours. Traceable traits. Recognizable patterns. Which is why Lip hesitated, pulling on the cigarette, before chuckling. “You really are Monica's kid, aren't you?”_

_He could have felt his heart sink and his fists clench. It could have been a comment that ticked every bone off in his body, sent him down the street to scream at the world that he's not Monica. That he'll never be her._

_It never came. It was like waiting for an explosion that just fizzled and burned out. The rage, dissipating in prolonged exhales shared between him and his brother. Instead, he just shrugged, gave Lip his best crooked smirk and said, “She gave me her best genes.”_

_Lip laughed at that, Ian laughed with him, and they laughed for a while. Long enough for pent up emotions sizzling down below to suddenly surface in unstoppable roars._

“ _See, I always knew Frank liked me best. He gift wrapped the alcoholic chromosome and handed it to me personally.”_

_Sanding outside the small corner church, at the end of winter, two motherless boys coughing their lungs up. They laughed harder._

_Ian went back to work after the short time off they'd granted him. When grieving period was over, he snuck back into his old routine, slipping into his thick uniform and fastening the belt. When he looked in the mirror before leaving his childhood bedroom, he couldn't tell how it made him feel anymore._

_He hooked up with people here and there, even took a shot with Trevor. That didn't last more than one night, when his hand was wandering into south territory and his mouth was occupied, and all he could think of was the wish for this to be over soon._

_He didn't make it through, pulling away abruptly and running to shut himself in the bathroom, chest heaving. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, pale, red, orange. This isn't me anymore. It sounded like somebody else's voice in his head. He told Trevor they couldn't do it anymore. Of course, it came with the absolute look of harmed pride, offense, and Ian had to stop himself from smiling when he shut the door behind him._

_He picked up shifts here and there, always agreeing to Rita's suggestions, always offering to cover, to replace, to be there. His savings account numbers started increasing again, his pride and satisfaction too, but not like before. Seeing the money count go up made him content for other reasons, like irrational shit he couldn't afford to think of. His time spent in the speeding van was some of the only time he didn't feel like ice was crumbling under his feet. He kept waiting for it to crack, splinter into zigzags and for him to fall into numbing nothing._

_He realised the ice would never break. He would simply tread on his tiptoes across it, with no chance of ever falling. Somehow, that feeling was worse than impending danger._

_Dusk was giving way to night when he walked into the house, dropping his bag to the floor and tiredly making his way to the beverage section. He eyed the water, then the beer, and thought fuck it. With the lukewarm budweiser spilling down his throat, he felt it drench to his core, whooshing it around and toying with it. He could never give a sensical answer if someone asked how he was doing lately. Fortunately, it was rarely demanded of him._

_He was heading for the stairs when he noticed the thin cardboard face down on the kitchen table. It didn't catch his eye instantly, dismissing it. But he had some strange inkling that he needed to look at whatever it was, for the sake of not driving him crazy when ready to sleep. There was a part of him that knew. Because, how couldn't he? But he didn't know. Yet his heart smashed against his ribcage._

_Turning it over, dark ink sprawled out messily into barely distinguishable sentences. He didn't have to blink twice for him to stumble back towards the counter, grabbing at it feebly. Of course it was him. Of course his life jumpstarted again._

_**2119 Wallace Street Chicago Illinois** _

_**I.G** _

_**Hadn't tossed the cell yet, thx for reminding me to throw that shit out into the deep end. Guess youre lucky I found it down the side of the car before I crashed that shit too. Actually I'll let u decide that.** _

_**Im sorry about monica, Ian. Know how things were between U. Bet youre still getting on though, working every day like the stubborn asshole u are. Never understand why life throws bullshit at u all the time until I see u beat it. Think some motherfucker pulling the strings up there is jealous, trynna cop u out. Fuck that guy** _

_**Got to a real nice place, hot as fuck. Yeah I burnt like a roasted chicken. U'd laugh at me. Its better than shitty heaters and no hot water. Beats that any day.** _

_**There are sunsets over the beach every night. I think of you every time** _

_**If u choose a next time, heres another N° u can ramble to or whatever. I'll hold onto it for a while. Have to toss it at some point tho** _

_**Ps: Didnt even know I knew ur address till it just came out of nowhere. More of u in me than I even know** _

_**M.M** _

_There are patches of growing dampness on the cardboard that Ian only notices when he pulls back, blurry vision accompanied by a wet chortle, a half attempt to chuckle and a half attempt to breathe. His hands are trembling. He was a lone silhouette walking in the dark, being navigated by a glowing lantern. Of course it was Mickey._

 

* * *

The sun is already lowering in the sky, a fuzzy but warm atmosphere around Ian as he walks down the path, crossing by cyclists and other two feet on the ground movers. Colours have started to bloom on the pale fading blue of the sky.

There are a lot of people. People crammed into a small space, the infinitsemal gaps of air filled with sound and smoke. Antonio's smoking, but not before openly admonishing himself, repeating that he has to quit, that he can't let Benjamin collect his bad habits. Daniela doesn't add anything, just purses her lips and watches him light up before resting her head on his shoulder.

Ian's been brokenly listening to the conversation, more between Antonio and himself, and focusing on Mickey's body heat next to his. They're separated by an inch that feels like a chasm. Mickey's on his third drink, tilting his cerveza in his hand and leaning back on Ian slightly. Ian grips him from behind, always like he's going to disappear, and Mickey always notices, setling his hand discreetly on top of his. The night is young and holds this feeling in its breeze, one of significance, one of importance.

“You not drinking Pelirojo?”

“Choosing the sober road tonight,” Ian says, looking around at the crowd.

“Up to some orégano?” Mickey asks, twisting his head to struggle to look at him.

Ian frowns. “Oregano like the seasoning?”

Mickey squeezes his hand quickly before snorting, “Nah, nah. Better stuff than that. Best shit you ever had.” He extracts a ziplocked baggie, the smell invading Ian's nostrils despite the blend with every other odor around them. Ian chuckles.

Antonio raises his eyebrows suggestively, before observing the people around them. Mickey's busy in his lap when Ant hisses, “Hey Gringito, isn't that your fuck buddy?”

“Was,” Mickey corrects him coolly, “And fuck buddy isn't what I'd call it.”

It's in and out Ian's brain in a second, the information piecing together. Though he hadn't been anything else, he suddenly feels painfully sober, unwillingly sober, too focused on what he's hearing, eyes darting wildly around and skin prickling. He slides his hand out from under Mickey. “What guy?”

“He's gone,” Mickey says before anything else is spoken.

Ian nods wordlessly, emotions churning like a whirlwind in his stomach, until he's sitting up, the movement wobbling Mickey. He makes the mistake of staring into his eyes, gleeful ambiance shading their faces. He thinks maybe he sees fear. Mickey swallows. “What are you doing?”

“Gotta get some air.”

The bodies are messy and pliable, too in their zone to even acknowledge Ian's purposeful shoving to free himself. He can't understand what the rope he's walking on means, why he's finding it so hard to perceive reason, to find calmness. He leans against the cool facade of the bar, closing his eyes.

“Ian?”

He keeps his eyes closed a little longer. He wonders how he must look. Mickey's standing near him, cigarette lit between his fingers. His face looks tired. Ian's made him tired.

“I just needed-”

“Are you taking your meds?”

Ian stops. Srunches his eyes. “What?”

Mickey casts his gaze downward, tonguing at his lip. “D'you need new meds? Need  a change of cocktail, switch things up? Cause if you do you gotta say something, we'll figure it out.”

Things are blurring around the edges. Ian's heart is in his hears, but it's also sinking to his feet. “What the fuck, Mickey?”

“I know you fucking hate me for bringing it up but I got to,” Mickey breathes, eyes skittering over the ground. “I gotta be sure.”

There's this prolonged moment where Ian's hit with blow after blow. Wanting to drop to the floor, just to never see that look on Mickey's face again. Self doubt,  g nawing at all his actions, questioning his mind, his emotions, everything he is. Anger, bubbling up under his skin and erupting, strongest of all.

“You think I'm unstable again?”

“I..”

“I'm not..” Ian says, regaining focus, pain stabbing his heart. “I'm okay.”

Mickey doesn't break eye contact, and in the light of the moon, it looks like there are dancing stars in his eyes. Ian probably has the same glisten.  _He doesn't believe me._

“Why d'you take off like that then? Been acting weird for days now.”

Ian probably has a choice. To react and let his first instinct be the one to win, or think diligently and carefully about how to approach it. Ah fuck it, they're already halfway there. “Fuck buddy?”

“That why you're upset?”

“What, that you fucked other people?”

“Jesus Christ. You realise how you're acting right now?”

Ian shrugs. “We're just talking.”

Mickey nods. “You're acting like a bitch.”

It comes. The fire. The inferno. Simmering on its own until it has the chance to explode. “And you don't fucking trust me!  You don't trust me and you.. You fucked other guys! ”

Mickey's breathing hard. He blinks rapidly, his cigarette long since crushed under his  shoe  sole. Ian's heart is drumming to a sped up concert, hammering, his legs wobbling. He wishes he could put out the fire. Let it rest. But it comes, too. Fire building and meeting in the middle. Fighting fire with fire. Blood with blood. Pain with pain. 

He guesses he expected it, when the first impact of Mickey's hands collides with his chest, not hard enough for him to fall, but enough for him to stumble back.  “D'you really fucking blame me for that?  Going off on me cause I didn't let my dick go dry while I waited for your ass to come around? Wasn't crying and using my tears as lube? Huh?”

Ian steps back, stumbles back, out of reach. He feels like he's being punched, repeatedly, in his gut, in his stomach, in his heart. He can barely breathe. He blinks furiously, seeing the rage melt and mold itself inside Mickey's eyes, wet but wild. “You-”

Mickey cuts him off. “I guess it's just okay when it's you that's fucking around on me and then coming to fuck me in our bed the same day, right?”

“That's not.. That's not how it was, it wasn't like tha-”

Mickey breathes, his face shattering, shards flying and cutting Ian all over. It's quiet. Storms and savages and hurricanes, hurtling to the worst doom of all. Silence.

“How's it not the same, Ian? How's it not the same when it fucking hurt me worse than you now?”

He should have expected this too, his legs running before he's thought of anything, his mind blank and his  world slowed. He vaguely hears Mickey's shouting, the strain of his voice, breaking. “Always fucking leaving.”

 

* * *

 

_ Ian spent a lot of time with Carl. He'd always known it, but he was becoming increasingly aware of  how  the  kid who at  10 year s old  was voted most likely to turn out to be a psycopath , was stunningly well rounded.  _

_Carl's head was on his shoulders. He said the shit he wanted to, he didn't sugarcoat it, and most of all, Ian never had the ticking time bomb effect with him. Ian was just Ian, the guy down the street was just the guy down the street. No bullshit. Ian had started running with him, every morning, and called it part of training. Carl stood with the uniform Ian wore proudly for years._

_He'd spend hours looking up at his army posters, and later, he would be coaching a military trooper, a soon to be soldier. It was some strange shot at redemption. At grasping closure for a dream that had ended before it began, though there was never a clear headed acceptance._

“ _Some guy told me Basic was just basic training,” Carl panted quietly as he rythmically brought up his elbows beside his moving body. “Like that for you?”_

“ _Yep..”_

“ _But you did the craziet shit?”_

“ _It was basic. I made it fun.”_

_Carl smirked as best as he could. “You eve r, ever gonna tell me what actually went down there?”_

“ _Some day,” Ian huffed, a splintering ache in his left hip._

“ _You've been saying that since you got back.”_

“ _Which means the day hasn't come,” Ian said, coughing when they slow_ _ed_ _to a halt, feet pacing lazily and wiping their foreheads with their shirts._

“ _Whatever,” Carl replied, even though he blatantly looked peeved that Ian still wouldn't reveal actions of the past. “I'll make it fun too.”_

“ _Just make sure you don't like, accidentally pretend to be me or something.”_

“ _Got it,” Carl said, pulling off his damp t-shirt and athletic shorts and jumping in the pool. Ian undressed too, remaining in his running shorts but playing with the water. Halfway through, he glanced over his back and went to check the mailbox, limp when he closed it empty. “Yo Ian?”_

“ _Mh?”_

“ _When are you leaving?”_

“ _What d'you mean?”_

_Carl rolled his eyes and narrowed them at him. “When are you going to Mexico?”_

_Ian almost choked on nothing, the question propelling him forward into a headplace where nothing held him down, nothing pulled him, nothing pushed him. He was a bubble bursting into air._

“ _I'm not dumb.”_

“ _How do you.. How..”_

“ _Been sad for like, 5 months. You check the mailbox every day even though I didn't know we had one. You mope around and you always talk like there's like, no time. And I catch you staring at our baby pictures. Thought you were, you know, at first, till I figured it out.”_

_Ian breathed in, revelling in how unafraid this all made him. Like his heart had already been thumping to this beat, to the beat of reality, to the beat of him slowly making his choice._

“ _You really aren't dumb.”_

“ _I'm corporal, what do you expect?”_

“ _Not yet.”_

“ _And you're not in Mexico yet.”_

_Ian looked at the shallow water. He saw oceans. He saw Mickey's eyes._

“ _Why'd it take you so long?”_

_Ian shrugged, a gesture so simple to resume sleepless nights speeding around a merry go round of all he's done, every mistake, bad decision, flap of a butterfly wing to lead where he was. It all came back to him. His worst enemy. Carl made it seem so simple. Maybe it was._

“ _You'd be good in Mexico,” Carl said. Ian looked up, his heart swelling. “Could probably sell Monica's meth better than here.” Ian laughed. “And I bet there's a ton of people who need saving all the time. And there's Mickey.”_

_And there's Mickey._

 

* * *

He knew this would happen. There was no way to avoid it. It was either dodge and tiptoe over a minefield, constantly watching their step, or running face first into the fog and seeing if they made it out the other side. There are scars. On their bodies, on their souls. Healed wounds, fresh wounds. And the truth is, Ian would rather cut open every scar and lets his blood run free than erase them. He would suffer a million heartbreaks than never hold Mickey again.

It was worth it. It was always worth it, more than it, more than anything. The sky is dark. Dark but interrupted by the length between a thumb and an index a million times over by faraway planets and comets and twin stars circling each other at a speed so great the human eye mistakes it for one.

His vision is clearer. What sent him over the edge earlier has settled, outside of him. He can almost see the piles, the stacks of unattended and put aside emotions, memories that weren't so much forgotten as they were pushed out. Tall, the pile is. It's not on his shoulders anymore, but it looks him straight in the eye, time when he let pristine gold be traded for rusty metals.

Ian's heart chucks itself forward when he sees Mickey, an audible and visible gulp of air shaking his body. Always afraid it never would see him again. Always roaring when it does.The guilt has seeped through, it clawed its way through when he pictured Mickey's hurt face over and over again, in his room, on Ian's street, behind the glass, behind the burning sun, only an hour ago.

“Thought you were leaving,” Is what he says, approaching over the gravel, music nearby blaring in the background.

Ian lets out the closest thing to a laugh. Funny how his body reacts when everything is mixed inside. “Thought wrong.”

They don't say anything for a few heartbeats.  Mickey looks away, out somewhere unattainable. He picks at his nose with his lip before he starts, his voice low and only for Ian. “ Look, I'm really fucking-”

“Don't.” Ian cuts him off, can't bear to listen to Mickey apologize, gripping the gravel and lifting himself up to eye level. “Don't do that. Don't say sorry,” He whispers. “I'm the one who fucking.. was acting like a bitch.”

Mickey chuckles, eyes still gleaming with reflection, surface watery. “He was just this guy, that I hooked up with a couple times,” He explains.

“You don't have to..”

“I want to,” Mickey says. “Been hammered for like, four days straight when I met him. At that bar. Didn't remember shit, but he wanted to see me again, so we saw each other few times after that, before I met Ant and Abuela and all those guys. I stopped it,” He pauses shortly, trying to never disrupt their gazes. “When I got your message.”

They're standing opposite each other, exposed skin in the shadows of the sun's absense, on the curb. It's just them, only them. Ian nods, swept up in a sea and searching for his anchor. “You were shitfaced?”

“First few weeks yeah,” He mumbles, eyes downcast. “Tried my best to use all the cash you gave me on tequila, just for my last fuck you.”

Ian smiles sadly. “Sounds about right.”

The wounds are open, easily drained by weak stitching barely holding them together. Ian could look away, wait for them to seal back up on their own and wear them, watch Mickey wear his. That's easy. Easy. He's sick of easy. “What you said back there about.. The shit I did when I was..”

“Manic?”

Ian shuts his eyes for a second. “Yeah. The shit I did is hard for me to talk about cause.. It feels like an old dream. Or a memory, but someone else's. A story someone told me where I'm the main guy. I know the fucked up shit I did, or at least minus the blackouts and coke highs..”

“Ian.” Mickey says. Ian stares at him, his spine like iron and his gaze like steel. He's watched them melt, malleable, liquid treasure. Never losing its value, just shifting form, always for Ian. “I don't blame you for that. Goddamn, could never blame you for that."

“But you said it hurt you.” The words are like another whip to Ian's heart, making it more real. “You said it hurt you and that's all that matters. I never said sorry..” He shakes his head. “'M sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Mickey's eyes, nose, face, the blade of steel that gleams with beauty and power, softens. Tears are falling down his cheeks, Ian's heart breaking again and again and again and the distance is unbearable so he erases it. Wraps his arms around Mickey's shorter body, red, gold, scarlet warmth pouring in his veins. They don't move, lights above fading and being replaced.

Wordlessly, they move together, feet treading over the gravel and towards the beach. This night is theirs.

“Talking beats me out,” Ian says, chuckling when Mickey's arm tangles in his.

“Fuckin' sun dried us out and turned us old,” he grunts, chuckling too.

The air is carrier of waves and forgotten heat, nostalgia and promise. “Think we're finally leaving the southside behind?”

They pass by another man, eyeing them from south to north, judgment flaring from his nostrils.

“The fuck you looking at, Bob Marley wannabe motherfucker?” Mickey growls, stepping forward, Ian flipping off the disappearing man, his dreadlocks swifting over his back with the speed.

“Bit longer.” Ian concludes.

“Yep.”

Ian's seen the beach; he's sat on it day and night, he's spent nearly every day with Mickey running his hands through the sand and hinges of salt clinging to his hair. But when they harmoniously remove their footwear and cross over from hard ground onto the softness of countless, minuscule, particles of rock, it feels new.

The waves are breaking the shore when they stop in front of it, humidity around them and heaviness in them. “Is this how you imagined it? You know, on the inside?”

“Didn't know jackshit about the ocean but pretty much,” Mickey says, his fingers brushing Ian's. “Thought they'd be more badass sea monsters. And you had less chest hair.”

“Asshole,” Ian chides playfully, smile dissipating in the dark.

“What? Your other lovers had a kink for it? Twisted their hands through it and called you foxy bear?”

“Fuck no,” Ian groans, feeling the twist of a dirty knife in his gut as he sinks to his feet, groaning again when his ass touched the ground. “And they weren't lovers,” He retorts, the word tasting bitter in his mouth.

Mickey narrows his eyes at him. “What were they then?” He joins him on the humid sand. “Hm? Boyfriends, bedmates, friends you fuck?”

“They were nothing.” Ian snaps.

There's silence, tide riding the coast noisily but painful silence. Ian doesn't want to look at him, sensing the shame plastered like a vulgar shot on a tabloid magazine.

“You gonna go with nothing? Christ Ian, you don't need to bullshit me. Think I got it when you said you'd wait for me and never showed your ass again. Doesn't,” He breathes, but it sounds like he's steering himself away from emotion. “Doesn't matter now, ok? Just don't lie to me.”

Ian's stopped counting how many times gravity collapsed on him tonight, taking this toll with more dignity than before. Pain's got him trapped in its grasp, and he's torn between fighting it and letting it overtake him.

“I did wait,” He says. Mickey looks at him, then, eyes so open and tired at the same time. “I did wait. Even when I told myself not to, I always waited for you. Fuck who I was with at the time, you had me again the second I saw you.”

Mickey swallows visibly. “Would I still have had ya 15 years down the line or would I be turning up to a white picket fence and barbies on the floor?”

“Fuck you,” Ian breathes, but he doesn't mean it, or at least he means it more to himself. A thread that he's been clinging in too falls apart, string worn and used and ripping, Ian falling with it. He supposes he's a spilling oil tank in the ocean, toxic and poisonous, unwanted ink spoiling blue. His tears feel like black trails, stained and sinister. Mickey's presence feels overwhelming now, like he wants to shout for him to stop sticking around for this and wants to cling to him, forever.

“Thought I'd never be able to handle it,” Ian whispers, shaking his head and frowning, like it hurts even just to speak it into the void. “Thought about how hard it'd be, for me. Never fucking thought how hard it was for you. Fucking selfish.”

“Hey.” Ian looks up from where he couldn't bring himself to meet Mickey's gaze, too afraid, always too afraid. But he's strong and gorgeous, his anchor. “Glad you didn't,” Mickey murmurs, and Ian's breath hitches. “Look how far you got without me.”

“Not because you weren't there Mickey,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady but knowing there was a wavering in it, “not because you weren't there. In fucking spite of that.” He can't look away, now. Not when there's a chance that what he's saying isn't being soaked up by Mickey's heart the way the water sinks through the sand. “Without you I nearly-”

Ian swallows, tears his gaze away, for just a second. The second drumroll of the night, his body telling him just how alive he is. Adrenaline is running along, the unspoken truth that he would choose this thrum of suffering over reckless nothing.

“Didn't stick by you when you needed me,” Ian chokes out, drops dripping down his cheeks and returning to the water. “And I'll never fucking forgive myself.”

He's spilled too much, spoiled too much, taken too much. His world is spiralling and he's feeble in his attempts to still it, to catch it.

Two hands framing his face. Diving into the safety of the eyes staring at him. “You're here now, alright Ian. Here now. That's all that matters, all that goddamn matters,” and Ian's nodding like he can't control it, water running along skin he's not sure belongs to him. The moon shines onto the waves; the reflection of the sun. It bounces into Mickey's eyes, the bluest he's ever seen. He can't fathom how he deserves to be the one they always seem to focus on.

“Fucking nuts if you think you ain't the best thing that ever happened to me,” Mickey mutters, like he can't believe it. “Wouldn't trade you or anything we've been through for the world Ian. Nothing is worth more than that.”

There was nothing, then there was everything. The crack of lightning, streaks of light cursing the Earth. The first growth of flowers blooming in looted soil, life starting again. The screech of a fast tire on a coal road, steam dancing from the accelerator. The laugh from a broken soul, mending itself. Ian's lips crashed against Mickey's, breath stolen by the only one who could.

They've begun and outlived wars, caught in acid rain, shed blood and tasted more of it. They've watched things crash and burn, they've found sleep on surfaces that bruised them. They've breathed life, swore to an existence predestined, tarnished, cold and a promise of a journey to nowhere.

Their kisses are a sign of the times. Their hands on each other are their own revolution. Their desire filled eyes and thrill hungry bodies are apocalypses only they survive. They're just two boys who have known what most seach for through lifetimes. Two boys who know all they'd do to keep it.

Ian is entirely his, hand snaking behind his neck and gripping his hair, a groan shuttering itself into the air. Mickey is entirely his, letting himself lie down against the sand, his hands gripping Ian's back, weighed down by something stronger than gravity.

“Gotta head back,” Mickey pants even though Ian's tongue is in his ear and he'd be okay with never hearing an answer. “Not fucking on the beach.”

Ian rocks into him, at the same time as the ocean rocks forwards. He stutters out, “Why?”

Mickey grabs at Ian, holding him in place where their bodies react. “Cause I'll be the one shitting sand for weeks after.”

Ian laughs, before clutching his waist and rolling them over, both moaning at the position and grinning at their view. “Not if you're on top,” Ian smirks the seconds before he's silenced, mouth moving against his.

Mickey drags his mouth over his jaw, down his neck, then back up, until he's breathing by his ear. “Haven't got any stuff either.”

Ian feels his heart in his chest and the thrill of shooting for the stars. “Don't need that,” He says, and to Mickey's confused face, “Get up here.”

It's slow, so slow, but any faster would take this moment and hush it. Mickey crawls up his body with the intent so clear in his gaze, never once looking elsewhere. Ian wants to never close his eyes, until his vision goes dark and he can't see much but he can the short breathing above him.

“Go on,” He whispers, Mickey shouldn't hear it but he does. He does, he does, he does. 

It's just them. It's just the whimpers falling from Mickey's lips and his desperance to stifle them, it's the marks Ian's fingers a re imprinting on Mickey's skin, his hands hooked around his legs. It's the fire burning, in his tongue, sparking Mickey up, hoping he feels like a shooting star. That thought alone has his toes curling and digging into damp cool soft sand.  Over and over and over.

“Ian.”

He hears it from far away, beyond the waves and the sound of buzzing, the entire world buzzing but he's underwater. Not drowning, drifting, safe, more Ian than he's ever been.

“Ian.” 

Mickey moves off him, and everything comes bursting back.  His chin is wet when he wipes his palm over it, nearly letting go when he catches a glimpse of Mickey's face looking down at him. Flushed in pale moonlight, red from fire crackling inside. He's everything.

It all passes in a daze, a daze Ian's never been so present in. He will remember it all, time nothing but the ache in his body for Mickey, nothing but rhythm in every one of his movements. Mickey does himself, never breaking eye contact, Mickey does it himself, when he makes them one. 

Maybe they're made up of the same things – as unpredictable and powerful as the ocean, as solid and strong as the earth. Carressing the sand, crashing into it, barely touching it. Destructive, uncontrollable, victim of harsh weather and storms. Maybe they weren't ready to meet in the middle, rampant force reckless with the land, drenching it, suffocating it, always changing it.

Ian opens his eyes through it all, seeing Mickey, seeing the sky behind him. There's uncertainty in every step of existence but he doesn't feel so afraid, anymore. He has Mickey in his arms, and he has infinity out of reach. Never a promise, but a leap. 

They move together. Ian's hands are everywhere on Mickey, his legs, his hips, his waist, his ass, his chest, his face. He tries to hold it together but his breathing is all over the place, his heart is reaching for the one above. They're binded by mingled oxygen, shared sweat. Ian runs his blunt nails down the length of Mickey's back, and he in turn rakes his down his chest, fingers twisting in the hairs there.

He wraps his arms around him, bringing them closer in every way. Mickey's warm mouth is wherever it reaches.

“You almost there?” Ian chokes out. 

“Yeah baby,” Mickey moans, rocking his hips to meet Ian's. 

“Me too,” Ian gasps out, crashing upwards like the wave hitting the shore, the damp water sprinkling and raining down on them. He loses his breath when his lips meet Mickey's, pushed right off the edge of the precipice, falling, through white light and dizziness and exctasy, vaguely aware of Mickey whimpering a heartbeat away. 

Their souls transcend their bodies and dance, fuse, molding together somewhere time and space doesn't exist, where they're falling through, never scared of the crash.

Ian looks over at Mickey, who tumbled over and fell next to him. His chest is heaving and his eyes are closed, a wide, wild, bold smile etched over his face.

“I love you,” Ian whispers, knowing that those words are the most meaningful of his existence. Spent so long longing for them, then running from them, because what's the good in putting an “I” when you haven't recognized yourself in the mirror for months. What was the point of saying “I” when there were parts of you couldn't control, couldn't understand.

When he says it now, it feels like the words sit between them, breathing them in. When he sees the look in Mickey's eyes, slowly turning to face him, surprised and breathless; he knows he'll never get closer to feeling like he's where he's meant to be.

“I love you so much,” He says again, smiling at how good it feels to say it. “Know I've made you doubt me but..” He pushes a strand out of his bright face in the dark somehow bathing in the lightest air he's ever tasted. “Still love me?”

Mickey bites his bottom lip, feigning something but giving up. “Can't fuckin' imagine a day I won't.”

 

*

_**To: Mick** _

_**this is the last msg i'll send u.** _

_**Started to think im crazy for real. For thinking this could ever actually work** _

_**Dont bother sending me ur number. Only thing i'll need is ur address** _

_**Its not over. It was never over** _

_**Save some sun for me.  
** _

_**Ur the only one. Always** _

_**ps: dont laugh at my hair** _

 

* * *

__

“Hey.”

Mickey hums, the vibrations travelling through Ian's chest.

“Remember when you asked me if I thought this is where we'd be?”

“Yeah.”

Ian's hand squeezes Mickey's shoulder tighter, blanketed by his body, still in the night. He's looking way ahead, way into where there'd no end, no limit, no finish line, with a beating heart. “It's better than anything I could've ever thought.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not gonna go into detail about how i didn't think i'd make it out alive, but just reminding that feedback is always welcome, more than welcome, even if it's not necessarily a compliment. 
> 
> i listened to : apocalypse / cigarettes after sex, when writing the last paragraphs.
> 
> and this is just one ginormous one shot. happy reading.


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